I have absolutely no idea why I started making this gown, except of wanting to make something exceptional – which, in my humble opinion, is a goal I have achieved.

This dress diary is very, very long. It became so long over a time span of several weeks and grew to a size that I personally would never have expected – in the end, I had 25 different pages describing various parts of this costume.

The diary also has many, many, many pictures – which may result in long loading times on some pages.
You can click on each picture to see a larger version (except of some detail pictures of the original portrait which were small enough, anyway).

This is one of the most excessive gowns I have ever made, only being topped by one other gown I have ever created in over 25 years of sewing (though I didn’t make that particular gown for myself).

This gown was not made in the order in which the pages are shown here on the web. In fact, I’ve worked on almost all parts of the gown simultaneously to give myself the biggest possible distraction.
Some pieces required completely different skills from others – like, for example, the jewelry making.
By being able to change between the single parts any time I was able not to get annoyed with one of them, like, for example, the pearl decorations on bodice and overskirt – something that is, to be honest, one of the most annoying things I have ever done.

There are some people I would like to thank before starting any explanations on the gown creation process, even if they will probably have no idea that they helped me on this project – I guess they will find out if they read this diary, to which I will give them a link:

– Michaela De Bruce, for constantly doing something having to do with costuming, therefore making me envy her for continuity (“Geez, I *have* to be able to finish something complicated without always letting it end as an UFO (unfinished object) in my closet!!!”);
– Margaret, for asking questions which made me look even more at certain portraits *plus* giving me the urge to prove that elaborate Elizabethan clothing is neither uncomfortable nor unmakeable today;
– Martin, for lengthy email discussions about Elizabethan clothing (now do you think that this gown would be worth visiting the Shakespeare theatre, my Lord?) and for trusting me in many ways,
– Bettina, Amalthea, Su’uded, Emmi, Aelora, Judith, Alexandra, the people on my LJ friends list and some others – for just being friends, trusting and supporting my wrecked nerves in times I needed just that,
– some unnamed, yet to me personally known people for telling me (or suggesting to others) that I couldn’t do something like this / would do it the wrong way etc. *or* doing something likely with so many mistakes that they are obvious (overskirt bending over bottom farthingale hoop, wrinkling and too high bodice, declaring woven brocade as “embroidered” fabric and a million times misspelling “bumroll”) but yet and still being praised (and rightly so – at least for their fabulous black- and beadwork), therefore making me want to do something like this really bad and proving that sometimes negative endearments can work too – even just not the way they planned it.

Thank you all, without your support and friendship this project would have died at latest while making the 35th “Quadruple“.
I, too, had my moments when I just wanted to stop making the gown and simply stuff the half finished parts into the deepest corner of my closet. In fact I had *many* of those moments; the last probably being the two days of my life which I have spent on sewing the rolled sleeves by hand.
But the fact that I already had announced a dress diary for this gown in some Livejournal communities pushed me further and further until I had completed it.

These were some words I just had to say. And now – on to the dress diary:

First, I never wear red gowns, I don’t own a single one and only owned one in my whole, 34 years long life – I have such a light skin that I personally think red makes me look as if I have been dead for approximately several centuries.

For the same reason I don’t like green, yellow, golden and orange shades – usually, my personal colors are blue, silver, black and grey because they look best with my fair skin. But…

Hope you will like my dress diary as much as I enjoyed making the gown.

Please start browsing the diary by the navigation at the top or by the ‘Follow me!’ navigation you will find at the bottom of each page; this process will lead you through the complete diary with all items and you don’t have to be afraid that you would miss something – you can simply scroll down each page, read what you want (or just look at the pictures) and then use the ‘follow me!” navigation to get to the next page.

...I'm currently working on the site; after over 10 years of working with static html (aka Microsoft FrontPage) I'm now porting this site over to PHP (aka WordPress).
That means I have to hand-copy-paste over 300 pages (!) and play around with the settings.
So in case something can't be found, use the search box above. If it STILL can't be found, be patient and come back in a few days ;-)

Contact? Please see the footer of each page in this web.

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Contact: Please write to
naergilien@yahoo.de with the word "Costume" in the subject line. My mail server will delete all mails automatically that don't have this word in the subject line; except if you are on my whitelist (which you are probably not if I have never written to you).
It may take me some days to answer - please be patient. If I shouldn't answer within a week, it's almost safe to say that I didn't receive your mail (for what reason ever) - in that case please resend it.

All images of my costumes and also the tutorial pictures as well as the descriptions of my work and various techniques on this site are copyrighted to me.
So don't take my pictures for publishing (e.g. other websites, books etc.; no matter if they are commercial or not) without asking me before you do so and especially not
without getting my permission to do this.
My server is mostly set up in a way that it doesn't allow hot linking on images; so if you
need to link to me, please link to one of my sites (hint: that's everything ending with ".htm"
or "html" in your browser's address bar) on which you found the picture that you would like to
link to.

All images of paintings or original movie costumes were
not taken by me (except if stated so) and are on this site for educational purposes.
As far as I could, I have credited the original photographers and/or their sites or have
mentioned from where I have scanned certain pictures. They remain property of their respective
owners.